[ale] [OT] Mac prices (was OT - old hardware)

[aaron]

On Wednesday 11 June 2003 14:20, Hogg, Russell E wrote:
> Speaking of used hardware,  I've always wanted a MAC to play around with.
> Anybody know of a good place to get a (slightly) used MAC?
> 
> The new ones are gorgeous, but cost almost as much as my last car.

>From the Apple site, without any dealer discounts or other bundles:

  eMac from 799
  iMac (with 17" flat screen) from 1299
  G4 with flatscreen display from 1599 

So what, your last car was a used Yugo beater from the junkyard?? ;-)

With all of the comparison points to consider I don't see the Mac system 
pricing as all that disproportionate to the rest of the PC market. For anyone 
wanting to explore home video and media production,  the very capable media 
software bundled with the new Mac systems makes them very competitive and 
attractive, and that's coming from a 25 year video & media production veteran 
who has to use that software regularly. I think the iBook and Powerbook 
pricing is even more directly comparable to x86 based systems, regardless of 
application interests.

In all cases, having a FreeBSD based OS integrated with the system instead of 
paying the convicted criminal M$ monopoly for another installed by extortion 
eXcrement Pile virus factory makes Mac an INFINITELY better value. :-)

Though I find a LOT to dislike (intensely) about Apple's entirely marketroid 
attitudes and hype, perpetuating that old inflated price perception isn't 
very fair or accurate anymore (unless you are talking strictly about Apple's 
current software pricing). Using them daily, I've grown to appreciate where 
Mac system designs actually live up to the promises of elegance, simplicity 
and ease of use; with all the open access provided by OSeX, the Mac "User 
Friendly" aspects no longer translate into "User Limiting" frustrations for 
people with a functioning cerebellum. And face it, the spherical base iMac 
with the swivelling flat screen is just plain O-S-eXy. 

Sure, you can mail order a comparably featured "blue light special" PC with a 
gig + mhz commodity x86 for about 2/3's the price of an iMac, but PC 
marketroid victims forget that the processor speed / system performance curve 
is not even close to linear; depending on dozens of memory, bus, OS and  
application factors, doubling the processor speed from 1 to 2 ghz may only 
produce a 20% increase in overall system performance. And, again, system 
performance is only ONE of a hundred usability factors that should be 
considered.

Given the options, paying 20 or 30% more for the Mac style, integrated design 
and a free Unix OSeX (and the well supported OSS access that brings), plus 
having commercially supported freedom from M$ seems a highly attractive deal.

The only better deal I know of is, of course, running Linux on roll-your-own 
commodity hardware.  :-)

peace
(after justice)
aaron

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